Live with joy, no matter what comes your way, because joy is never to be lost, I’ll tell you why. You were once given to the world, to feel it all, to add to it, to stub your toes against thick knobbly roots and not feel anger but joy that trees exist and you can walk near them. You were given to the world to feel alive as you let your hand caress tall slim grass, smooth sands and waters that come from sky and ground alike, enclosing you in a circle where you cannot lie or pretend as you learn about what life tastes like.

Live with joy and catch raindrops in the nest of your palms at least once because rain was never meant to cause you grief but give life around you and for you. It does that, regardless of whether you see it or not, but if you do, you’ll stand astounded by the miracle of it all.

You were given to the world with joy, thus you must live in ways that will let joy be seen in you wherever you go. Live with joy so you have nothing to hide. It’s with you. Joy. It’s in how you start the day. Or how you end the day before. Remember that yesterday and today become the ground your soul feels before your feet trace the first steps and your eyes are peeled open by morning light.

Be joyful for the slimmest sliver of daylight that tickles your eyelids and for the furtive glimpse of shadowed stars as sleep steals you away for a bit. Make joy a constant thought you braid with gratefulness; they feed on each other. Do it every day, because every day brings gifts. Not all come with ribbons and beauty. Some will make you cry, some will hurt as you open them, but please, hang on to joy, you’ll understand why later on.

Live with joy. It gives you reason to forgive when forgiveness is what you have to give, find joy in the humble act of understanding it. Live with joy; it’s what will help you build boundaries that will keep you safe and your dreams too. Be joyful so you can understand what matters in life. Start learning it early. It’ll keep you grounded when the going gets tough, because it will. Joy will be the moonlit path that will lead out of the darkest scariest woods.

Take yourselves places where joy grows wild. Don’t ask where that is, you’ll find them. There is a place like that for everyone. You’ll be overwhelmed by the mirrors in which you will see yourself, your naked soul, reflected in ways that will make you understand life and your own place in it. You’ll understand how joy and tears are never too far from each other. It’s where you will find me. It’s where I’ve been plotting all along to meet you, since the first day I knew of your existence. It’s yet another place where we learn of each other’s depths and dreams.

Live with joy, because when you do, you grow wings that will take you high enough to never taste bitterness, resentment and unkindness. Joy leaves no room for that. Live with joy and you’ll find the right people to share that with.

Simplify your life so you can see all the colours your were meant to see and hear the whispers of even the quietest of hearts. Make joy the key that will open doors you were meant to open. Remember that people’s hearts are doors too. Never force your way in. If you live with joy, you’ll be safe from that.

You will know that it is not perpetual smiles I wish for you when I urge you to give in to joy, but the ability to understand that as you should feed on it, your wings will grow strong and ready into stormy skies and cloudy grey mornings, just like they will soften and give in to the warm glaze of many sunrises and sunsets. Joy will see to that. You’ll grow tired of flying at times, of coldness and bleak horizons, and then, just the same, you’ll blush with the realization that your heart expands with every day you tell yourself ‘I have what I need to keep on going.’ That is joy; because you chose to live with it. So keep at it, it’s the right way to live. It’s what I wished for each of you the day you struggled to open your eyes to the world for the first time. You don’t remember it, but what you first saw was joy. All there could be. I thought you ought to know that. Now you do.